), known as Chief Alfred Sam, was a Gold Coast-born merchant and pioneer pan-Africanist who during 1913 to 1915 encouraged the resettlement of African Americans as part of the Back-to-Africa movement.
[3] In May 1913, after corresponding with Herbert Macaulay in Nigeria and traveling to the US, he began holding large camp-style meetings in Weleetka Oklahoma and elsewhere,[1] encouraging African Americans to buy $25 worth of stock in his Akim Trading Company, join a voyage to their "ancestral home", settle on fertile land that he claimed to have purchased there, reject America and live a life of freedom.
[2][4] By early 1914, some 500 black Americans were prepared to sail to Africa on Sam's ship, the former German steamer Curityba which he renamed the S.S. Liberia,[1][4] and assembled at Galveston, Texas.
An initial group of some sixty trained and selected men and women were eventually taken on board and left with Sam in August 1914,[2] together with a cargo of lumber, cement, lime, flour, agricultural implements, and household goods with which to establish a settlement.
After a long delay in Freetown while British authorities checked the ship's ownership,[4] they eventually reached their destination, Saltpond, in January 1915, and were initially given a warm reception.